Turkish authorities

“ Now the case is altered: fewer crimes are committed in Turkey than in London, and the Turkish pashas endeavor to stop such practices as are considered discreditable on the part of the inferior officers; though they have to contend with great difficulties in a country where it is hardly possible to get at the truth, and where the inferior officers have for generations been accustomed to plunder those below them, directly they are out of sight of the higher authorities ”

“ It was very evident that local Turkish authorities in each place had a detailed list in their hands as whom they were to plunder, which house to burn after plundering, which persons to be killed and which to be imprisoned. Those who attempted to protect themselves were horribly dealt with, and those who were destined for death could not find safety even in their Moslem neighbor's houses or in the government houses. Enforcement to Islam was more eagerly practiced in villages and small towns. ”

“ The want of order in this country is very great. The Turkish authorities, to whom the country has been again given up by Christian bravery, are lazy, malicious, and weak at the same time, whilst Ibrahim Pasha at least knew how to maintain order and security as far as his government extended. ”

“ Article 49 In the portion of the zone of the Straits, including the islands of the Sea of Marmora, which remains Turkish, and pending the coming into force of the reform of the Turkish judicial system provided for in Article 136, all infringements of the regulations and by-laws made by the Commission, committed by nationals of capitulatory Powers, shall be dealt with by the Consular Courts of the said Powers. The Allied Powers agree to make such infringements justiciable before their Consular Courts or authorities. ”

“ When I finally reached Zicron-Jacob, I found rather a sad state of affairs. Military law had been declared. No one was supposed to be seen in the streets after sundown. The village was full of soldiers, and civilians had to put up with all kinds of ill-treatment. Moreover, our people were in a state of great excitement because an order had recently come from the Turkish authorities bidding them surrender whatever fire-arms or weapons they had in their possession. ”

“ Even in the case of those neutral witnesses who are safe in their own countries, a similar precaution must be observed, because many of them, or their friends and associates, have property in Turkey which would at once, despite their neutral character, be seized by the Turkish Government. ”

“ I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require and to insist that our government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigor to concur with the other states of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner—namely, by carrying off themselves. ”

“ In my opinion, I have been a far better friend to the Ottoman Empire than have the Sultan and his advisers. I have always recommended the granting of reasonable powers of local self-government, which would have saved Turkey from terrible losses. This good advice has been spurned, and in consequence Turkey has lost 18,000,000 of people, and may lose more. Pray weigh these words.”—
The birthday of the Ex-Premier was made the occasion for an anti-Turkish demonstration. ”

“ In case he has committed an offense he has the nominal right to appeal to the head of his sect for protection, and on the other hand the patriarch or chief of each millet is nominally the medium through which the laws and orders of the Turkish government are enforced; but this is purely theoretical. Men who are accused of crime or misdemeanor are hauled up by the Turkish police and cast into prison without mercy or justice and remain there until their friends can raise money enough to buy them out or the diplomatic agent of their government appears to protect them. ”

“ In truth, the underlying cause of Turkey's troubles is the ignorance and fanaticism of her people. These evils result largely from the utter absorption of all devout Moslems in their creed and ritual. Texts from the Koran guide their conduct; and all else is decided by fatalism, which is very often a mere excuse for doing nothing [86] . Consequently all movements for reform are mere ripples on the surface of Turkish life; they never touch its dull depths; and the Sultan and officials, knowing this, cling to the old ways with full confidence. ”

“ Now in all these stipulations so intimately concerning Turkey, for whose independence we are fighting, Turkey is not allowed to have any voice whatever, nor has she ever been allowed to be made acquainted with what is going on except through the newspapers, where the Turkish Ministers may have read what is passing, like other people. ”

“ The army officers with whom I conversed despaired of their country, and those who had been in Constantinople said that the one hope for Turkey—an administration under the direction of men of Midhat67 Pasha’s stamp—had been destroyed. The army doctors in Scutari—for the most part Armenians—were still more outspoken, and advocated the deposition and even killing of the Sultan. One of these doctors described the condition of the country to me in the following words: “You have no idea of what a corrupt, vile thing this Turkish Government is. The Court eats all the country. ”

“ There appears, in short, a steady policy to exterminate these people, but to deny charge of massacre. Their destruction from so-called natural causes seems decided upon.” [184]
In conclusion, let us state a few facts: The extermination of two millions of innocent, “loyal to a fault,” Christian subjects of the Sultan of Turkey was planned at, and ordered from, Constantinople. This crime has been committed. The young Turks have proved themselves unfit to rule even under a constitution. The Turkish government has forfeited its right to exist as a government. ”

“ The danger to Turkey in its Eastern provinces of Asia Minor and in its European provinces in Macedonia and Epirus is the comparison between the condition of those who were freed in 1878 from the Sultan’s rule, and who have become self-governing, as in the case of the Bulgarians, or have gone under the rule of Austria, Russia, or Greece, with those who remain the subjects of Turkish rule. When, on one side of mere geographical lines, without any physical difference, the populations are flourishing and improvements of all kinds in roads, railways, harbours, schools, etc., are being effected ”

“ And now let me give my reasons for the distinction which I have drawn between Turkish and other atrocities. The distinction is this: that other governments may forsake their evil ways, and "rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things," but that the Turkish government cannot. And for the following reason.
It has already been stated that the government of Turkey is strictly theocratic, and its Magna Charta is the Koran. Certainly the precepts of the Koran are, many of them, immoral and cruel enough. A conquered people, for example, cease to have any rights whatever. ”

“ The blind policy which was inaugurated by the present Sultan of dismissing non-Moslems from every branch of public service—post, telegraph, custom-house, internal revenue, engineering, and the like—has already been carried out to a large extent all over the empire, and especially in Armenia. The frequent changes in Turkish officials keeps their business in a state of “confusion worse confounded,” and incites them to improve their chance to plunder while it lasts. Traces of the relatively large revenue, wrung from the people, and spent in improvements of service to them, are very hard to find. ”

“ The governors and other Ottoman officials were as corrupt, rapacious, and arbitrary as they had ever been. There was no security for life or property. The Turkish soldiers plundered the villages of Christians which they were sent to protect. Bands of brigands, sometimes wearing the uniforms of Greek, sometimes of Bulgarian soldiers, devastated the country. No attempt was made by the Young Turks to put in force any part of the reforms which had been proposed by the Commission appointed by the Great Powers after the Congress of Berlin. ”

“ With regard, again, to the civil government of the country, it has been remarked that the pashas are so frequently changed, or so often at war with each other, that the jurisdiction of the magistrates in cities is so undefined, and the hereditary or assumed rights of the sheiks of particular districts are so various, that it is extremely difficult to discover any settled rule by which the administration is conducted. The whole Turkish empire, indeed, has the appearance of being so precariously balanced, that the slightest movement within or from without seems likely to overturn it. ”

“ THE ABUSES IN TURKISH RULE
Here lies one of the curses of Turkish Government. Many things are tolerably good on paper, but the actual practice never harmonizes with the written law in Turkey. The ignorance and unworthiness of the officers may be one of the reasons of this misery, but the greatest defect lies in their principle and character.
1. Bribery. The majority of the offices are merely sold to those who bid the highest. ”

“ I thought I could probably better serve the cause of justice and humanity by devoting considerable space in setting forth in order the Turkish Government’s atrocities, both during the reign of Abdul Hamid and under the rule of the Young Turks, since that unhappy government became a tool in the hands of the intolerable German power. The rulers of Turkey, the Young Turks, have learned of late from their Prussian masters, both by precept and example, a barbaric tyranny which utterly surpasses that of their Mongol predecessors. ”

“ It consists in pushing forward, if need be with greater delicacy than before and on the round-about road of real modern reforms, towards the one immovable goal: the complete Turkification of Turkey. The reform of the [Pg 195] law, which we have treated more exhaustively as an example of the first rank, is typical of the Young Turkish national tendency. Naturally it has its use, too, as a means of further throwing off the foreign political yoke. Through the modernising of the whole Turkish legal system, Europe is to be shown that the Capitulations can be dispensed with. ”

“ Either the young men must be taken from their native or adopted provinces and trained in the armies of the Empire at a distance from their homes, or the entire people must be made to bend to the yoke of an equal civil law, of which they at present evade the provisions and defy the ministers.
While the Turkish Government have little reason to be satisfied with the results of their experiments with the Kurds, the effects which derive from their presence on the tableland are disastrous in the extreme. ”

“ Let them have the courage to tear from their hearts all ideas—if they entertain such—which are prejudicial to the interests of the Turkish rule, and let them, without fear, throw themselves into our arms. They have nothing to fear from us; all that is asked of them is that they make us believe in their sincerity. But, whatever may be said in this country, it is the Turks who compose, and who will always compose, the dominant element.”
The Committee, therefore, set itself diligently to work to secure the ascendency of its adherents in Parliament. ”

“ As regards human rights, Turkey recognises the primacy of international and European law. It has aligned itself to a large extent with international conventions and rulings, such as the complete abolition of the death penalty and the release of people sentenced for expressing non-violent opinion. Although some practical restrictions still exist, the scope of fundamental freedoms enjoyed by Turkish citizens, such as freedom of expression and assembly, has been substantially extended. Civil society has grown stronger. ”

“ There has been no lack of cross currents against the war policy of the Young Turkish Government. Ever since the entry of Turkey into the war, there has been a deeply rooted and unshakeable conviction among all kinds and conditions of men, even in the circles of the Pashas and the Court—the people of Turkey take too little interest in politics and are composed of far too heterogeneous elements for there to be anything in the nature of what we call "public opinion"—that Turkey's alliance with the Central Powers was a complete [Pg 210] mistake and that it can lead to no good. ”

“ And yet, even at that time, Ahmed Riza and his Mussulman associates were planning a scheme which was intended to bring liberty, justice, and security to the oppressed Christian subjects of the Porte, and was, moreover, destined to prove successful where all the diplomacy of the Powers and the too often misdirected efforts of the humanitarians in Europe78 had signally failed. For the Young Turks, like their great forerunner, Midhat Pasha, realised that Turkey could only be saved from disintegration by placing all her races and creeds on an equality, by giving the same rights to all. ”

“ The Allied Powers reserve the right to examine in such manner as they may determine all decisions and orders of Turkish Prize Courts, whether affecting the property rights of nationals of those Powers or of neutral Powers. Turkey agrees to furnish copies of all the documents constituing the record of the cases, including the decisions and orders made, and to accept and give effect to the recommendations made after such examination of the cases. ”

“ But now it was all one whether the British Government signed the Protocol or not. Turkey would have none of it. [pg 182] Despite Lord Derby's warning that "the Sultan would be very unwise if he would not endeavour to avail himself of the opportunity afforded him to arrange a mutual disarmament," that potentate refused to move a hair's-breadth from his former position. On the 12th of April the Turkish ambassador announced to Lord Derby the final decision of his Government: "Turkey, as an independent State, cannot submit to be placed under any surveillance, whether collective or not. ”